by Sara Shilo
‘Not when I was holding her; when I came down with the bird book. I thought I heard you whistle, and jumped down into the bushes. I didn’t look where I was going. I was afraid I might drop the book so I took it out of my mouth. I forgot all about that bastard piece of iron stuck in the ground.’
‘OK, OK, come and sit down. Have a rest. Just don’t start crying on me. And have a good rest, because you need to go back up for one more thing.’
‘Go where? You said we’d finished! You’re changing things yet again. First you said we’d just go and get her. Then you said we needed the book, so we’d know for sure if she was a girl. Now it’s something else. And you said the book was a little thing but look at this finger. It’s like a hotdog. My fingernail is killing me.’
‘I swear this is the last thing. We just need something to hold her. Dudi, how can we train her otherwise? All we need is a leather cord.’
‘Why did we cross the street? Ten metres later and we’re crossing back again. Is it because of Mordi? So you don’t have to say hello to him? Where’s the harm in saying hello? Now he’ll think we’ve got something against him, and he’ll tell Kobi.’
‘So what? Kobi’s not our dad.’
‘He’ll get angry, and Chaim and Oshri—’
‘Leave them out of it. They’re just babies. One day they’ll find out the truth about Kobi.’
‘Itzik, don’t be like that. He’ll get angry and then he won’t give us money for the cinema. I can’t live without films.’
‘OK, OK. She looks like she’s listening to everything we’re saying. Her eyes seem to understand everything, don’t you think? She understands the past and the future, and she doesn’t care about any of it. I love the way she grabs my finger with her foot. Do you think she knows she’s ours? Wait, where are you going? We’re heading this way.’
‘No, no, Itzik. Not that girl-soldier-teacher place. I said I was never going back there. I swore on Dad’s memory!’
‘What’s the matter with you, Dudi? I swear I’ll never understand you. Either you want her or you don’t. How can we train her without a leather cord? All right, calm down. Why are you jumping up and down? I’ve already thought it through. On Monday all the girl-soldiers have classes in the adult education centre, where Grandma goes’
‘How do you know where Grandma goes? We haven’t seen her in ages.’
‘I saw her going in there last week with all the old ladies. It starts at four. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And I don’t want to hear you swearing on Dad’s memory again. We don’t have a dad. You can’t swear by someone you don’t have. Get it?’
‘And what if one of them doesn’t feel well and decides to stay at home, eh? Did you think of that? Or if she just didn’t fancy teaching and pretended to be sick? Come up with me yourself. We’ll knock on the door and see if anybody’s there. Then I’ll go. But how do you know they’ve got a leather cord?’
‘Believe me, they have.’
‘A leather cord?’
‘Have you forgotten about that tall girl’s sandals? She probably gets up at six in the morning to criss-cross them up to her knees.’
‘Course I know her. She’s a friend of Liat’s. Her name’s Shulamit.’
‘So if we tie the leather from both her sandals, we’ll have a great cord. She doesn’t like to wear them anyway, because people made so much fun of her.’
‘Her legs look like meat tied up for the Sabbath stew.’
‘So let’s go and get it. We’ll be done in less than a minute.’
‘At least let me give back the book, Itzik. I’ll just rip out the two pages we need, then put it back on the shelf.’
‘What’s the matter with you, Dudi? I swear I’ll never understand you.’
‘But you said we’d give it back! You’re changing your mind again. You said we’d just look up the bit about hawks and then give it back. You promised we wouldn’t steal!’
‘What’s the matter with your brain? If we put it back now, they’ll be onto us right away. Forget about the book. One day, when they’re hot under the collar about something else, then we’ll give it back. We’ll bring it to the school, make it look like they did it, that they forgot about it. And bring me some more meat, too. She’s still hungry. Listen to that screeching! But I’ve just remembered they fixed the shutter after their radio-cassette went missing. You can’t go in that way again. Get it?’
‘If Liat’s there, I’m dead, Itzik! I’m a goner the minute I look into her eyes. I can’t cope. If she catches me, she’ll cry. She won’t tell anyone, but the way she looks at me, the look in her eyes, it’s a kind of death.’
‘You’re off again! When will you get it into your head that that’s how she’s holding on to you? Liat in the morning, Liat in the afternoon, Liat at folk dancing, Liat at the cinema, Liat at school, Liat in the centre, and Liat in bed – in your dreams. It’s like a Bollywood film. You spend your life doing things to raise half a smile from that girl, and you haven’t even seen her bedroom. She’d slam the door in your face. I swear, Dudi, you’ll never ever see me tied to someone like that. Get it? She’ll soon be finished with the army, and then she’ll go back to wherever she was before. She won’t bother to piss in your direction.’
‘Why do you have to ruin everything for me? Just because you don’t like people doesn’t mean I have to run away from them all the time. And why should it bother you if I dream about her at night? Is it any of your business? And her smile – maybe she has a smile Itzik’s never seen, eh? Maybe she gives you half a smile but I get the whole thing, and laughing, too. She comes up close and looks into my eyes, and she laughs. You know something – I won’t sneak into her house. I swear that’s the truth. I’ll just go to the front door, if she lets me.’
‘You won’t go in?’
‘I won’t!’
‘You know what your problem is, Dudi? You always go after the birds that flit from place to place. What do you think you’re doing? Those volunteers will go back to America in six months, and you’ll never see them again. Just don’t tell me that you’re dreaming of the day some volunteer girl says, ‘I love you, David’, and takes you back to America with her. Dudi, you will never see America. Listen to me. The best you’ll be is background in the photos they take back to America. A photo, that’s it! What do you get from the girl-soldier-teachers who are just dying to get out of here? Shoot me if I’m wrong. Every Friday morning their eyes are glued to the clock, counting down the time minute by minute. If you saw them in the city tomorrow, Dudi, they’d cut you dead.’
‘That’s enough, Itzik. Enough!’
‘I haven’t finished yet. Listen to me. Even the ones that are here for two years tops, what do you get from them? They’re only living here because they ran out of money in the city, and can live here cheap. They look at you as though they were nice and clean after a mikve, and God just got mixed up and threw them in the rubbish by mistake. Every day they count how much money they’ve got, and how long they have to wait before they can fly back to the city. Those people will fly away, and those and those, and they’ll have a good laugh about what a moron Dudi was. He thought he’d fly away from here, too. He didn’t see he was just a chicken in a coop that couldn’t fly for more than two metres. Dudi, remember this: I’ve got no faith in people who come and go. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve, so they can do whatever they like with it. They came, they stayed, they went. It’s not my problem. I forgot about them before they even arrived here. The only people in this world you can really lean on are your family. Get it?’
‘What family? I talk about Dad; you tell me we’ve got no dad. I mention Kobi; it’s like you’ve been bitten by a dog.’
‘Forget Kobi. He only thinks about himself. I’ve told you that a thousand times.’
‘I’ve had enough. You’re making mince-meat of my heart. I’ll go in one last time, but not now. I’m dying of hunger. I can’t go in if I’m hungry.’
‘Why don’t you have something to
eat while you’re in there? Go into their kitchen. You’ve got loads of time. I’ll cover you from behind Cohen’s grocery. Eat something quickly, but just bring the sandals. You shouldn’t be more than seven or eight minutes, even after eating.’
‘Where will I find food? In the girl-soldier-teachers’ house? You make me laugh. You’ve never been in there, have you? They’ve got nothing. The kitchen is empty. There isn’t even the smell of food there, just the smell of the black mould that grows in winter. They can’t get rid of the smell, even though they whitewash it before Pesach. I don’t know what they eat all day, I really don’t.’
‘Our problem is that Cohen won’t give us any more credit. If only Kobi would pay him. You can smell the bread from here. OK, we’ll go home and get something to eat there. I got hungry thinking about those hungry girls. Afterwards, we’ll come back for the sandals. We’ve got until seven, when the class finishes. We’ll put her in her kitchen cabinet while we eat. You did make holes in the cabinet for her, didn’t you? I hope you did, Dudi.’
‘I made five holes. Five!’
‘So we don’t need to worry. We’ll put her in the cabinet and nail it shut. Then we’ll come back here at six, before it gets dark. That’d be all I need, for you to turn a light on while you’re inside.’
Dudi
If it wasn’t for Itzik I would never have thought of breaking into houses in a million years. If Itzik didn’t have those hands and feet, maybe he’d go instead. Itzik’s my big brother and he’s just like me. We’re practically twins. When he takes off his hat you can’t tell us apart, except for his hands and feet, poor guy. What can you do? That’s how he was born.
It’s Itzik who tells me how to climb. Without him I’m nothing.
I’ve climbed houses, rocks and fences hundreds of times. Itzik tells me how to do it. I wouldn’t know how to climb something new. He knows how to read walls, and I don’t.
He looks at a building from the top to the bottom. He starts to read it. I don’t know what he’s seeing. I don’t understand why you can’t just go up to the wall and start climbing. He doesn’t talk. I walk around, kick stones, mess with my hair, take a piss, come back, and find him lying on the ground like a bug that’s turned over. He lifts his screwed-up hands and feet, moves them as if he’s climbing, but without getting up. How could he? He just shadow-climbs, his eyes moving up slowly, and he puts his hands and feet in exactly the right places. He marks out in the air what I’ll do on the wall in two minutes.
After that he’ll say, ‘See the bars on Hazan’s window? You put your right foot there. Then you climb the bars to the end of the window; just be careful not to wedge your foot in too hard or your shoe won’t come off again when you pull it out. You lift your hands, grab the pipe and pull yourself up till you can put your left foot on the new awning of Edri’s laundry balcony. Just be careful there. That plastic is slippery. Now, you don’t put another foot on the awning, Dudi. You still hold onto the pipe, just hold it a bit higher, then lift your right foot up to the concrete strip. From there it’s easy. You see the little windows where the birds make their nests? You put your left foot in the lower window, and grab the other window with your hand. After that you put your other foot there too and hold on with both hands. Go up like it’s a ladder till you can climb the bars of the girl-soldier-teachers’ laundry lines, then you bring up your feet one after the other, and you’re on their balcony.’
When he finishes talking, I go up exactly as he said. Luckily I find Shulamit’s sandals right there, thrown onto the laundry balcony. I make a victory sign to Itzik. He mouths, ‘God is great!’ Then I go to Liat’s room, but it’s locked. I have no business being there. Itzik signs that the coast is clear. I throw him the sandals, grab the pipe, and slide down.
I’ve been getting things for him since I was nine. At first I used to fly up, fall down, and the whole world would spin and go dark. I’d fall down, almost break an arm, but Itzik’s face never moved. I would cry and scream with pain, and he never budged.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help me. He wanted to help me as much as he could, except his hands drop everything. After I’d finished screaming, he’d say, ‘You know what your problem is, Dudi? Just when things are going well – maybe you climbed the right way for a metre – you get excited and forget where you are. Think about John Wayne, how he shoots three Indians, tak-tak-tak, and they fall down before they even saw him. What if he got excited, went to sit with Itzik and Dudi in the cinema, just to see how great he looked? Another Indian would show up straight away, and whack him with one arrow. Get it?’
He’d say the same thing every time, till I learned to climb. Now he just puts his hand on my shoulder. He doesn’t pat me on the back, just places his hand. That’s the best thing in the world, his hand on my shoulder. Except it reminds me of Dad and then I want to cry. As soon as Itzik senses that, he removes his hand. Then we go quiet. We never talk about Dad.
What is there to talk about? Dead is dead.
I only borrow things for him, and I always think I’ll stop tomorrow. Itzik doesn’t have the same sense of not being allowed to steal. He always says something to change my mind. You think something is good and the other bad; Itzik will get you to swap sides.
He has his Commandments, too. You’re allowed to steal something if:
You return it exactly as it was.
The person you’re stealing from doesn’t need it.
The person you’re stealing from has stolen from others. It’s even a good deed then. (Assouline from the grocery puts up his prices because he knows people can’t drive to the city where the same thing is half the price. A month ago we stole batteries from him. Itzik wanted them; I don’t know why. He was in the back of the shop and knocked over a box of tin-openers with his screwed-up hands. Assouline came to help him pick them up, and that’s when I put the batteries in my pocket. Then I went to help them as though nothing had happened, and we left. The minute we’re outside the shop I start to shake, and Itzik says, ‘I’m taking you to see the villa he’s just built in the flashy new development. How did he have the money for that if he didn’t steal from everyone?)
It’s for someone else. Then we’re transferring, not stealing. (Itzik says you can take something from someone if it doesn’t mean a lot to them but the world to someone else.)
You’re stealing it back. That’s allowed, too. (Itzik says, ‘That book isn’t theirs, and the girl-soldier-teachers didn’t buy it, either. The stamp says it belongs to their high school.)
You’re getting back at someone.
It’s for an important project. (‘Think of the people who have died in terrorist attacks, Dudi. If we went to Shulamit and said, “Give us your sandals, and your best friend won’t be killed by terrorists”, don’t you think she’d give them up for Liat?’)
When I start talking about something we stole, he brings up God: ‘What’s right? Who’s right? Did God make everyone equal? There’s no such thing as justice. He doesn’t deal the same cards to everyone in life but he gives everyone the same Ten Commandments. Why is one person born in a castle and another in a tent? You tell me. Do you know why? Because God steals and replaces, just like us. Just so the world doesn’t become boring to look at. When we lift something, God’s happy, really. He sees we understand His game.’
That’s the way Itzik messes with my mind. When I’m with him, I believe every word he says, but the minute I’m alone I can’t think that way. I go home, look at Dad’s photo, and I want to cry. Dad looks at me and says, ‘Is that what you’ve become, Dudi, a criminal?’ What can I tell him? What Itzik told me? ‘You can’t be toeing the line all the time, Dudi. You’ve got to decide when to be inside and outside of the law. What is a good person, anyway? Is it somebody who sticks by all the laws to make God happy? Don’t make me laugh. Someone who pretends to think about God is only thinking about himself, so he can go to Heaven when he dies. Listen to Itzik.’
Itzik
Since I was small,
I’ve thought about what God was thinking when he stopped my hands and feet growing inside Mum. There’s nothing God doesn’t see, nowhere he can’t go. He doesn’t have eyes like ours, which can only look forward and see a tiny bit of the world. He sorted out something better for himself. I don’t know exactly what, but there’s nothing he can’t see. He sees everything, God, everything from miles and miles away.
No one could help Mum see what he was doing to the babies inside her. She had no choice. She just had to put herself in God’s hands. Like Suleika the blind woman who crosses the street by herself, she could only pray that God would watch over her. That’s all Mum could do until the baby came out, ready-made and too late to fix. She couldn’t say, ‘He’s not mine.’ How could she when everyone saw him come out, the cord still attached to her? That’s how God teaches people that they’re small and blind, and he’s big and all-seeing.
When I was little I used to lie on the floor a lot, as if I was a carpet. The floor and I were stuck together for most of the day. I’d try to do things the other children at nursery would do, but nothing worked. When this happened, I’d lie on the floor quietly, shut my eyes, and imagine I was back inside Mum’s belly, listening to God decide about each of my fingers, when to stop it growing. I’d see God walking by silently, each week pointing at a different finger, and the angel flying with him writing down on my notes what God had ordered. I’d see the picture of my feet and hands on the note in the angel’s hand, and that he’d written to stop the fingers that had begun to sprout.
Then I’d feel my heart exploding with pain, and I’d go beserk. I’d head-butt the floor – buf-buf-buf – bang with my hands and my feet and my knees as hard as I could, and scream just so I couldn’t hear my thoughts. I’d do that for a while, until my body hurt more than my head, and I’d only stop when my body couldn’t take any more. I’d stay on the floor, listen to my beating heart until it slowed, listen to footsteps. I’d become a part of the floor, just listening to footsteps. That was good. Lying down, listening to all the banging around, feeling the heat of my cheeks wanting to heat the floor tiles but the tiles cooling them instead. I’d smell my own sweat and breathe loudly. When my sweat cooled, I’d get up and start trying to be like all the other kids again.
